malada

Smile! We're putting a camera down your throat! Open wide!

Although I haven't been having any serious tummy issues lately, it's been a few years since they last looked around down there and decided to check things out again.

They knocked me out (well sort of) so I was definitely not feeling any pain or discomfort. They snipped something small and suspicious and reported excess mucus. There was other minor things I'll DuckDuckGo later because it's all in medical jargon.

Although I was 'awake' after the procedure I didn't return to full consciousness until I was back in the car and pulling up to the driveway. (Yes I had a driver.) Late breakfast then bed for a few hours. I was still wobbly on my feet the rest of the day but was mostly okay.

Over time the drugs wore off and all normal aches and pains returned - along with an irritated throat. I'm still okay, just more away how much I hurt an a day to day basis. Mostly muscular. It's annoying.

Need to get my signs ready for Saturday!

So Elon and company had another fireworks display... I mean, attempted another launch of Starship.

The launch went well but the Starship tumbled out of control and exploded and the Super Heavy blew up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hardware retrieved: 0. Data retrieved: ??? Estimated cost: 100 million dollars.

Lessons learned? Probably none.

I'm old enough (young enough?) to remember when NASA had disasters of having entire rockets with payload go *BOOM* there were investigations, Senate hearings and people got demoted, fired or disciplined. Elon? Fat chance.

I grew up in the Space Race: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, the Shuttle. I know NASA has its problems. I know that no bucks, no Buck Rogers. Too often NASA has been squeezed between doing Science, government micro management and providing job programs for select congressional districts. Space X has done a great job with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy but Starship? It's a near total failure.

Look, NASA was working on reusable space craft back in the 1970s but the material science wasn't quite there yet. They were doing successful launch pad to landing pad experiments. Nothing big, just a 100 feet or so. Baby steps. All cancelled by budget cuts by congress. Space is hard. Space costs money. Space needs research. But when you blow through a 100 million per launch and gain nothing? Forget it.

So we're actually going to accept the Qatari 747 that's been described at a 'Flying Palace' as a grift, I mean, gift?

It's a hanger queen.

It's sat unused for 5 years. Has it been maintained? Can it even fly?

Don't know!

So, yeah... the cost to actually get that thing approved and airworthy? Unknown!

The cost to strip it down and make it the flying command post that is what Air Force One is supposed to be? Millions and millions!

tRump just wants to ride around in style, you know? In a couple of months it will be ready, he says.

Yeah, no. Unless he doesn't care or believe he needs the extra protection he already has with the present Air Force One.

Maybe the Qatar knows this and hopes that he'll get blown out of the sky? Eh, don't think so. They know where their bread is butter and tRump is a dope who can be bribed by shiny things that they don't want and apparently, nobody else does. .

The leopards eat your face,
The leopards eat your face,
Hi-Ho, you're chewy-oh!
The leopards eat your face.

You voted for the Don,
You voted for the Don,
Hi-Ho, you're chewy-oh!
You voted for the Don.

You bought into the con,
You bought into the con,
Hi-Ho, you're chewy-oh!
You bought into the con.

You're really screwed you know,
You're really screwed you know,
Hi-Ho, you're chewy-oh!
You're really screwed you know.

The leopards eat your face,
The leopards eat your face,
Hi-Ho, you're chewy-oh!
The leopards eat your face.

Oh, tRump and the Reich Wing are all set to kick trans people out of the military. Again.

They claim trans people cause problems with unit cohesion. The military says they don't.

They claim trans people cost to much in medical services. The military says it's a drop in the bucket.

They claim trans people aren't effective warriors. The military says they do okay.

If you want to know the real reason behind the Reich Wing hatred of trans people take one of their statements about how bad trans people are for the military and replace "Trans" with "Black", or as they would prefer, "n*****".

And they'll come for the Gays next. Just replace "trans" with "fa****" and it'll still rhyme.

It's the same old Fear of 'The Other' which permeates the Reich wing and has for generations.

I really think the Reich look at armies like North Korean's and marvel at the macho posing shown in the propaganda videos North Korea vomits out. That's what they want the American military to look like: macho, mean and menacing.

And make them white, too.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, the manly North Korean soldiers are being slaughtered by blue haired lesbians operating killer drones.

'Nuff said.

In the latest of round of D.E.I. stupidity it seems the rRump administration wants Stockholm, Sweden to stop any D.E.I. activities if they want to do business with the their embassy.

Sweden said no.

If it was Sweden, I'd say, "Okay, we're not doing business with you," and shut off the embassy's water, power, telephone and internet.

Talk about Ugly American.

i own two bass guitars, one electric, one 12 string, and three acoustic (classical) guitars. Two to the acoustics need repairs which I think I can do if I can get the parts. Actually, the third acoustic has a cracked bridge but it's still playable. The electric I want to rewire. The basses are fine. They all really need new strings.

So I got some nylon strings for the (mostly) working acoustic.

NEVER PUT STEEL STRINGS ON A CLASSICAL GUITAR. YOU WILL BREAK THE GUITAR.

It took a while for the strings to stretch into tune. I'm sure it's going to be a few days before they settle in. Tuning was difficult with the strings stretching and immediately going out of tune. It's been ages since I've restrung any guitar and I didn't do the best of jobs with this one. On top of that, my hearing loss has made it difficult to tell when things are out of tune. I pulled out my guitar tuner and spent the time struggling to get it at least close.

Then I started playing basic chords. Half of my hand remembered where the fingers go but the other half had almost completely forgot! Classical guitars tend to have a wide neck and my fingers are short.

But at last, the strings were mostly in tune and my fingers remembered where to land. And I suck. I was never very good anyways but... it was close enough to bang out some chords. And then something clicked in my brain. I remembered what the guitar sounded like, and I could hear it again. It only lasted a few moments but that tiny spark of musicality that resides in my soul light up again.

I think that playing again will help my failing hearing so I'm going to investigating repairs, more strings and playing more. I might even buy a steel string acoustic. The 12 string is hard to play although it sounds like a million bucks - when it's in tune.

Playing music feeds something in my soul. I'm a lousy musician but I want to feed that part of my soul that's been starving for a while. If I play for anyone it'll probably be only for me.

And that's all that matters.

I hope your choices are better than the ones made here.

In other news the re-write of "Demon Blood" is going slowly. I've rarely taken any time to edit what I've written so this is a good step. Some are just word tweaks or correcting spelling errors but a majority of the edits are adding sentences to fill out a character or a scene. I haven't checked the word count but I doubt it hasn't reached over 45k yet.

First draft writing can be thrilling. When the words flow from your fingertips to the screen it's exhilarating. Sometimes I don't know where it's coming from it jut flows out of me. It's heady and fun. Going over and fixing things up is work. It's not fin. But fixing things can be very satisfying.

Weather is changing here - cold mornings turning into hot afternoons. It doesn't matter because my office is always cold. I think the weather changes is making my body protest with all sorts of random aches and pains. It's tolerable but not pleasant.

I had an electronic account years ago at ssa.gov -probably when I turned 65 or 67. To my dismay I have to register *another* account with login.gov. Right, two factor authentication blah blah. Set my second factor to my land line and to telephone me. This is a security step because my cellphone can be stolen but my land line? Not so much.

So I signal to send authorization to my phone!

*silence*

Which means the f*ckheads are trying to text my land line. *ggggrrrrrr*

Fine, set it up with my cellphone. Get the number, type it in and my computer slows to a crawl. For a moment I thought my machine locked up but I still had my mouse. A really slow one.

Yeah there's some dumbf*ckery being done.

I will admit that I had Folding At Home running in the background but ssa.gov is a website not a graphic intense game! I"ve done youtube while folding without an issue. I managed to pause Folding and that helped.

Color me suspicious.

I got my latest statement which was why I logged in. I poked around a little more and was frustrated by the poor design. Something is f*cked up. I need to know more about threat assessment and before I log in again because something is messed up.

Watch your backs, folks.

My first rally in decades.

HANDS OFF!

We're a small city place that's sort of red. Yet, in the rain there were at least 100-150 people. Not bad for a rainy Saturday. Mixed crowd - skewed towards older folks. All they had was a bullhorn when they really needed a PA system.

I actually have bits and bobs that could be cobbled together to form a PA system - I just don't know if any of it still works. No speakers though. I could get some cheap but they're a pain to move around.

Update - it seems they had a PA but it was really weak. News reports reported the crowd at around 500. A village half an hour away had 150!

I was told there would be signs provided at the rally = there weren't. I'd best get busy making signs for the next one.